“You there Big Man?”
Gary’s voice echoed and bounced around the bare walls of the empty church.
“Maybe not. Ah probably don’t merit your attention anyway. You’ve got bigger fish to fry than me at present, haven’t you? There’s billions of us wanting answers from you an’ that’s a pretty tall order to meet, even for you God.”
The church remained silent and Gary’s head sunk onto his clasped hands resting on the pew in front of him. He listened quietly for a few moments, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Then he spoke again, raising his voice a notch or two.
“Ah don’t know what you want me to do God! Do you want me to finish it now? Ah’ve lost everything that ah worked for anyway, so what’s the point of goin’ on? Do you want me to walk up that mountain out there an’ throw myself off, or walk back to the sea an’ throw myself in or just fling myself under a train? Maybe you’ll be saying that ah’ll be with you in less than five months anyhow. But why don’t we both just finish it here and now? Eh, God, what do you say?”
Gary peered around seeing only emptiness and cold. Silence. He jumped to his feet and raised his arms aloft, in a cruciform position.
“FUCK SAKE, GOD! Just one word. Yes? No? Just one sign. That’s all ah’m askin’ for –“
He slumped back onto the seat of the pew and unconsciously back into the prayer position. He wept profusely. Tears blinded him and mucus streamed out of his nose and mouth.
“Ah’m sorry, God, ah am so sorry. Ah have no right to ask you for anything. Please can you forgive me?”
There was no crack of thunder. There was no blinding light from heaven. There was no heavenly choir of angels, nor any booming voice from above. However, as Gary wiped the tears and snot away he slowly felt a distinct change come over him. He felt the black heavy fog in his brain lift away and a warm calming feeling spread throughout his body. When the warmth had spread from his head down to his toes he was left with a feeling of peace. All his inner demons had been exorcised and he never felt better in his life. He looked to the rafters and mouthed, thank you God. Coming out the church gate he looked across at the café and the waitress was standing outside having an e-cig break. Gary shouted across to her with a broad smile on his face, pointing skyward as he walked briskly back towards Grange-over-Sands and back to finishing off his projects in Houston.
“The man upstairs has sorted it out for me.”
The broadly smiling waitress waved him enthusiastically off down the road.
“Told you he would, lad!”
When he got back to the B&B he quickly checked out and when he went to the train station he found that there was a diversionary train to Lancaster leaving in half an hour which would get him back on to the main line to London. He had been unable to get a signal on his cell in Grange-over-Sands. It had probably been disrupted by the meteor strike at Penrith. However, his cell was fully functioning when he arrived in the old fortified town of Lancaster and he put a call through to Ewan in Houston. It was still early morning in Houston but Ewan’s face appeared on screen almost immediately. Before he could speak Ewan was blurting at him excitedly.
“Jesus, Gary – you don’t know how good it is to hear from you. Thank God you are alright.”
“Alright? Well ah sure ah’m alright now. Why?”
“We’ve all seen the meteor strike hitting Penrith on the news over here and we thought the worst because we hadn’t heard from you. There was a sleeper train from Scotland going through Penrith at the time and it has been obliterated. You’re dad Frank has been bombarding me with calls all morning to see if I had heard from you.”
Gary looked at his cell. Twenty six missed calls.
“Jeez, Ewan, ah’m sorry. My life kinda got diverted for a while in more ways than one. Ah guess ah must have been on the sleeper behind the one that got hit. But it’s just to say ah’m okay now. Back on track so to speak an’ ah’m heading back to Houston ASAP. Ah’ll get off the line an’ call my family right now.”
“Okay, Gary. Look forward to seeing you back, mate.”
“Oh, by the way Ewan – there’s something ah’ve found in NOAHSARK that I need to speak to you about – one day. But it’ll keep for now.”
*
Earthdate: 11:20 Saturday January 8, 2084 EST
It was a bitingly sharp frosty Virginian morning with a crystal clear blue sky as the three cowboys rode across the stubbled bare fields, a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’. Jack Crossan was happier than he had been in years as he and his two young sons Milner and Jack Junior galloped over the top fields of his Lexington ranch. The State of Virginia had never looked so beautiful. Even the sight of the half-moon high in the pale blue winter sky with the now clearly visible Schenkler comet lower on the moon’s left seemed somehow strangely beautiful. Jack thought, how paradoxically magnificent in its cosmic beauty but catastrophic in its final outcome. What the Big Bang can create the Big Bang can destroy. However, today was not about destructive thoughts but about the joy of being alive. Jack had recently come to a sort of reconciliation with Peggy Sue and like most countries around the world, schools had been shut down since Christmas, for good in most cases. Peggy Sue’s partner Justin Smythe had also been given a month’s leave from the RAF, part of the peace dividend brought about by the onset of Armageddon. Jack had invited his two sons, Peggy Sue and Justin out to spend the holiday on the ranch. Jack had managed to engineer two weeks off from his gruelling schedule of training for the new astronaut teams and also preparing himself for his own upcoming flight of the last Oceanus scheduled for 28 February, just eight short weeks away. It was likely that when he went back to the programme at Houston, Jack would never see his two boys alive again. But for now Jack was determined to enjoy his last few days with Milner and Junior. They pulled up their panting horses next to the woods on the western edge of the ranch, which was verged with frost rimed rye grass. They let the horses rest and feed on the grass and Jack put his arms lovingly around his sons shoulders.
“Wow, guys, that was fun, huh?”
His youngest son Jack Junior excitedly agreed with a slightly English accent which made Jack wince a little.
“That was really great dad – we’ve not had much chance to ride in Cucklington. Too much going to school and loads of homework.”
Milner quipped boyishly, still retaining his Virginian accent.
“Yeah, pop, it’s great we don’t need to go back to school again, ain’t it!”
“No it ain’t Milner – education is one of the greatest gifts that we can ever get –“
Jack pointed up to the comet.
“- without education and knowledge we would never have known what we do about Schenkler and –“
Jack let his sentence hang unfinished. Milner sort of finished it for his father.
“Are we gonna die, pop? Mom says that we are all gonna die.”
Jack pulled the three horses closer together. He pushed back the boys’ cowboy hats and ruffled their hair.
“We’re all gonna die one day.”
Milner and Junior’s eyes filled up and they bravely fought back tears. Jack lifted their chins up.
“Look boys, it’s a big deal, but it’s nothing to be afraid of –“
Jack Junior snapped at his father.
“Yes, dad, but you’re getting to go to Mars. We’re too young to get that chance. So you’ll live and we’ll die here on Earth.”
They all looked at each other with pursed lips in momentary silence. Jack thought for a few second before responding. He put his arms around the boys’ shoulders and drew them in close.
“Boys – ah sorely don’t want to leave you here. But ah’ve gotta do my duty and take those guys out to a new life on Mars. But ah promise ya both this – that one day we will all be together again. We’ll meet again in the sweet bye and bye. Promise?”
The bo
ys spoke in unison.
“Okay, pop, it’s a promise.”
“C’mon then, guys, let’s ride back to the ranch. Mom and Justin are makin’ good ole fashioned burgers an’ fries – yeah?”
They all fist pumped into the air and turned the horses around and galloped home yelling and cheering, scattering cattle left and right. Jack reined his horse back slightly to let Milner and Jack Junior gleefully charge ahead as they rode back to the ranch. He did not want them to see the tears which were freely rolling down his cheeks and blinding him. The thought went through his mind that this would be the last of these happy days with his beautiful sons. In fact, Jack was soon to find out how quickly those happy days were to come to an end. As the three of them all crashed cheerily into the big ranch kitchen with the meaty smell of burgers salivating them, Jack immediately saw the worry in Peggy Sue’s eyes.
“Jack, Beth O’Donnell called. You’ve to get up to the White House this afternoon for a meeting with Trueman. They are sending down an air-limo in the next hour to take you back to DC.”
“Did Beth say what was going on?”
“No, but it sounds bad, Jack.”
Milner grabbed his arms around Jack’s torso and cried out. Jack could also see Jack Junior’s lips quivering and restraining tears.
“No, daddy, you can’t go – you’re still on holiday with us. Please don’t go!”
“Sorry, guys, I gotta go. But ah’ll probably be back in the morning –“
Justin, who was standing by the big Aga stove as acting cook, defused the tense situation.
“Hey, c’mon you guys, we’ve still got time for those famous American burgers that you all rave about. Let’s eat!”
*
By four thirty in the afternoon Jack was sitting in the Oval Office with Aaron Eckler, Beth O’Donnell, Ari Schenkler, Ewan Sinclair and Ravi Gupta-Chaudry. Abdullah Suleiman and John Ralston were patched in on the White House conference system. Jack, who had only arrived in Washington half an hour ago in the executive air-limo, had been quickly briefed by Eckler a few minutes ago and the group sat tensely awaiting the arrival of the President. Trueman immediately marched into his office with his private secretary Jimmy Swarbrick. He stood in front of his big comfy executive armchair, looked at the assembled group, then he slammed down his briefing papers with a resounding thump. He then seemed to slump into his chair and opened the meeting with a resigned groan.
“Aw, fuck it all! Can we take any more of this bad news stuff? Ah’m getting’ sick and tired of sitting in front of a camera an’ bein’ the harbinger of doom to the peoples of the world.”
What the assembled group knew and had been briefed on was that at 9:36am that morning, communication had come into NASA HQ, relaying that one of the fleet of twenty five Oceanus spaceships had apparently disappeared without trace. It had five hundred passengers and crew on board. Oceanus XIII appeared to have been destroyed, however, none of the other fleet ships were close enough to Oh XIII to see what had happened. There had just been an immediate cessation of communication from Oh XIII to the fleet and NASA HQ. The boffins at NASA had been poring over all the available data and Eckler’s team had brought the results to this executive briefing. Aaron Eckler nodded at Ewan to begin.
“Mr President, I’m afraid that it is bad news. All data points to X-triple-I being instantaneously destroyed in a catastrophic incident. Although the flight path of the Oceanus fleet is well away from Schenkler’s trajectory, we believe that it is likely that rogue debris has been thrown out of the comet’s tail which has collided with the ship. Indications are that the impact was a direct hit on the fusion drive engine resulting in the ship being instantaneously destroyed in a nuclear explosion.”
Trueman laid his elbows on his desk and covered his etched face with his big hands. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as his fingers threaded worryingly through his thinning wiry hair. Eckler spoke.
“Mr President, they wouldn’t have felt a thing –“
Trueman looked up.
“Who was the commander of X-triple-I?”
Jack replied solemnly.
“Commander Bethan Jones, sir, only twenty six. Ah trained her personally. She was one of ma best students and a sad loss.”
Trueman nodded a thanks at Jack.
“She got family?”
“A dad Andrew and a younger sister Megan, sir.”
“Ah’ll speak personally to them before, um – Bethan – gets plastered all over the news. She is indeed a sad loss, but more than that we have lost five hundred souls an’ we can ill afford that kind of collateral damage. These guys were part of our salvation!”
The group looked towards Eckler who quickly scanned his brief before speaking.
“It is indeed a terrible loss, Mister President. However, we unfortunately had to factor into our risk assessments that out of the fifty Oceanus that we planned to fly to Mars, there was the possibility of losing at least two ships to catastrophic events such as this morning’s with X-triple-I.”
“Jeez, Aaron, we’re only managing to send twenty five thousand to Mars. Surely we cannot afford to lose a thousand?”
“Mr President, we have built in contingency plans for such an event. We have two reserve lists, primary and secondary, and that means that five hundred new immigrants will be selected from the primary reserve list to go on the final launch on 28 February. Jack, your job will be to ensure that you pick the best new crew from your reserve astronauts already in flight training, okay?”
“Ah’ll get down to Houston ASAP and get right on it?”
Trueman responded quizzically.
“Okay, Aaron, so we got the people and the crew ready to go, but ah thought we were only building fifty Oceanus for the job?”
“Admittedly, it’s a tight call, Mr President, but we had already factored in the build of another two Oceanus ships in case they were needed – one in Europe and the other in Iran. I am hoping that PM Ralston and Mullah Suleiman will be able to confirm that they can complete the build and transfer to Alpha Base for pre-launch trials by the end of January?”
Trueman leaned towards the conference screens.
“John? Suleiman? Are you guys able to deliver at least one of these two ships on time?”
London came through first.
“Josh, I’ve spoken with my scientific advisors and although they say there are some technical issues, we are confident that we can deliver you another Oceanus to Alpha Base by the thirty first of this month. The key funding and resources have been provided by Ranulf Olafsen’s ROMANCE organisation in Sweden.”
Suleiman in Tehran followed up Ralston’s call.
“Josh, my honourable friend. I too have spoken in the last hour with my scientists. They say that the thirty first is a very difficult target, but by stripping the build down to the barest minimums, we believe we can achieve delivery. It will not be a very pleasant trip for the five hundred but we’ll get them to Mars, by Allah we will!”
Trueman turned back to Eckler.
“So does that mean we are going to send another thousand not originally in the plan?”
“Well, Mr President, yes, on the basis that a) Jack’s team passes the two ships fit for purpose after some pretty quick space trialling – Jack?”
“Ah’m on it, Aaron.”
“- and b) it is still on the basis that we unfortunately expect to lose one more ship in our calculations. If they both make it then good and well, although it will mean some overcrowding at Mars Capitol Base. But we will just need to deal with that.”
Josh Trueman was feeling a bit better than when he first entered the Oval Office some minutes ago.
“Well, thank the Lord that there is some good news –“
Ewan interjected slightly nervously.
“Um, Mr President, we may have a little more on the good news front. I’ll let Ari
tell you – after all, it is his comet!”
Trueman looked over at the young Israeli astrophysicist.
“Well, Mr President, as you know the Earth has been continually bombarded with debris from the comet’s tail over the last few weeks and months – large meteor showers, which have caused considerable collateral damage and loss of life –“
“Yep.”
“Obviously over those few weeks the Earth has continued on its orbit around the Sun and the Schenkler comet has now effectively passed inside Mars’ orbit and its trajectory places it smack bang on course to collide with Earth on May 26 as predicted –“
“That’s good news!”
“Well, no, obviously not, Mr President. However, the comet’s tail is no longer on the same path as Earth, so for the next few months we should be spared the damaging meteor storms that we have been suffering.”
The President looked at his private secretary Jimmy Swarbrick busily scribbling notes on his eTab writer.
“Jimmy, ah’ve got to address the nations on the six o’clock newscast. Write me up a draft speech. Ah think we can demonstrate that out of adversity we still have some hope left to give!”
Chapter 22
Earthdate: 16:05 Friday January 14, 2084 EST
Six days after she had broadcast the news report on the loss of Oceanus XIII, Jill was on a welcome break from the stresses of pre-apocalyptic TV journalism. She was attending a 2-day course on space flight acclimatisation at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida as part of her selection to the secondary reserve list. Although, in the end, she had found that the two days were no less stressful than the day job. Yesterday she had a full day on lift off training and procedures and she was subjected to all sorts of G-force manoeuvres which left her absolutely drained. Today she was on zero gravity training, which included working underwater in full space gear and also taken on a supersonic sub-space flight which performed zero gravity manoeuvres. There was also a simulated spacewalk training session in full space flight gear which was designed to cater for the possibility of transfer from one spaceship to another in case of emergency. Jill found the training very stimulating and enjoyable and she was even going to propose doing a future feature on the training programme for Sky News. However, by four in the afternoon on the Friday she was utterly exhausted and she could not wait to fly back to Ewan in Houston later that night. She was getting her stuff together in the ladies’ locker room when a female flight training assistant popped her head in the door and all the girls getting ready to leave looked up.
2084 The End of Days Page 30